Trying to install Windows Vista on my comp, but install hangs after reboot - takes forever on black&white Longhorn screen but gets past it eventually, then sticks on a black screen and/or 'starting installation' with the hourglass hand. Let it run overnight and no luck... comp just sits there. Rebooted into Windows Setup safe mode and it booted fine and got past 'starting installation' only to have 'error copying files' and roll back changes.

System specs: AMD Athlon XP 2000+ (I thinK)
512 MB RAM
Radeon 9200 SE
Creative SoundBlaster Audigy something or other
C drive 120 GB ATA
D drive 80 GB ATA (neither are SATA)

- I've got XP Media Center 05 on C, and I moved all my files over from D to C, left about 10 gigs free on C and installed to D, which I didn't FORMAT or partition but Vista install detected it as perfectly fine to install to as an actual separate disk not just a partition.

Any help? :S Would be great... thanks.

I'd try a quick format of D when you're in XP then start the installation from Windows.

Are you trying to upgrade or dual boot?

I have seen this behaviour on laptops which have bluetooth and/or wifi cards enabled - the setup screen is very slow to respond and never gets past that point.
The second the bluetooth adapter was turned off the installation continued almost immediately.

I would guess that something similar is occurring to you - one of yoru pieces of hardware is making the setup "stick" at the hardware detection stage.
Try starting at the bare minimum hardware, disabling unecessary onboard functions in the BIOS.
Or wait for the February CTP.

Dual boot, theoretically, though I figured if it doesn't quite dual boot properly, then I'll tell it to boot off the D drive in the BIOS.

I don't have a wifi/Bluetooth/etc card, so I'm not sure what extra hardware could be messing it up. I think I'll wait for Feb CTP - and run a quickformat as suggested when it's released.

Thanks!

i'm having the exact same problem . after the restart everything is relaly slow. at the "initializing install"? screen theres a copy error. does anyone have any ideas?